Morocco - Land of Contradictions

Hi, everyone. I'm trying to figure out how to upload pictures, so I hope this works!

I will tell you about my camel trip tomorrow night, but wanted to just send along this picture of two young women looking out from an ancient mosque high above Rabat, to a construction site below (one of the young king's many projects). It kind of captures the incredible complexity of this country. It's simultaneously old and new; African, Arab, and French; secular and Islamic. Listening to the radio as the van takes us to the orphanage every day is quite an experience, and not just because of the insane second-world traffic all around us (you know, people driving on the sidewalk, all kinds of vehicles competing for inches of space, etc.) Anyway, all the announcing is in French; the news is always in the official language of Arabic; and the music is American. Last Friday, as we waited in the van to leave the orphanage, our driver Abdou was listening to the Friday sermon, sort of a soothing, droning monologue in Arabic. It was followed almost immediately on the station by HARD CORE RAP complete with the F-word and quite explicitly sexual lyrics!

Another example is our neighborhood. It's filled with embassies and fancy homes, but any empty lots are a wreck, strewn with garbage. Sidewalks start and stop. The traffic signs show a little green man, indicating "go," but the cars just move on through the intersections, which is a bit unnerving. It's all rather topsy turvy, with things strangely unfinished and discombobulated.

On top of it all is the Moroccan sand - soft and red, and pervading sandals, air, clothes. No matter how neat and new things are, the sand humbles it.

Okay, must go. If you can believe it (I can't), a bunch of us are making reservations on Orbitz for Cairo for the weekend of November 7. Somebody pinch me....

B'salaamah.